1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air-conditioning apparatus and a method for determining the amount of refrigerant of the air-conditioning apparatus, and more particularly, to an air-conditioning apparatus and a refrigerant amount determining method of an air-conditioning apparatus to accurately determine whether or not the amount of refrigerant in the air-conditioning apparatus is proper.
2. Description of the Related Art
As for a multi-air-conditioning apparatus, if a refrigerant flowing in the multi-air-conditioning apparatus is more than or less than a fixed quantity, a system performance is degraded, and worse, the multi-air-conditioning apparatus may be damaged. In the related art, a manometer (or a pressure gauge) is installed at a particular position of the air-conditioning apparatus to determine overs and shorts of the amount of refrigerant based on the pressure of the refrigerant detected by the manometer. However, only an expert or a technician of the air-conditioning apparatus is able to determine the overs and shorts of the refrigerant by using such method, so using of the method is not convenient for general users. In addition, even the technician has no choice but to determine the overs and shorts of the refrigerant indirectly, lowering the reliability of the results of the determination of the overs and shorts of the refrigerant. Thus, in most cases, the refrigerant in the air-conditioning apparatus is wholly removed out, and then, the air-conditioning apparatus is charged with a new refrigerant. Such unnecessary re-charging of the air-conditioning apparatus with the new refrigerant takes much time and incurs much cost. In addition, the operation of the air-conditioning apparatus should be stopped for the process of re-charging the refrigerant, which causes user inconvenience.